Spent
4 days in Branson seeing 6 Christmas shows. The show part was great; the
Christmas part was dismal. No carols! It
was an Irving Berlin/Aaron Copeland Christmas.
So help me if I ever hear about “having a merry little Christmas” for
the rest of the year. All the while the
girls come out dancing in costumes like wrapped gifts, showing a lot of
leg. Finally a country group said they
were going to sing about the real meaning of Christmas and I thought, ‘hot dog!
Here comes.’ Doggone, it didn’t. They sang a medley of gospel songs like
“Amen” and even there, no meaningful lyrics.
But the steel guitar guy put on a terrific solo.
I never realized we have become so PC
secular. Oh, I’m probably wrong on my details.
They do sing Silent Night but only the first verse which goes over most
people’s theological heads. Ditto the
first verse of ‘What Child Is This?’ No second verse which tells the Christian
story. They make an exception once in
awhile by singing the first verse of ‘O Holy Night’ which does contain strong
meaning but the exception seems like it’s only to allow the Big Singer to show
off the wonderful finale with her Great Voice.
So I propose that if you are surrounded
by Agnosticland which only wants to glory in Winter Wonderland, here’s how to
respond. Say this. Do you realize that the Old English word “merry”
as in Merry Christmas originally meant “being at peace spiritually.” The song ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ alludes
to this,”God rest ye merry gentlemen…to save us all from Satan’s power when we
were gone astray/ O tidings of comfort and joy!” Merry Christmas meant being at peace with God,
the Prince of Peace.” Hence the
Pilgrims, rather stern believers, didn’t believe in feasts and rabble rousing. They
practiced fasting and meditation and repentance and watchfulness the 4 weeks
before Christmas. Advent (those weeks)
were known as Little Lent. So Divine Arrival
means forgiveness and thus peace with God, “Merry Christmas.”
It sure beats Silver Bells, though
that’s a good song too. And concerning
that Berlin/Copeland Christmas, stripped of a chance to offend anyone,
Christmas’ date was truly picked to do just that. By picking the same week as the winter
solstice and Roman orgies of Saturnalia, Christmas stood as a story of such a
humiliating birth it would almost bring tears.
“Yet in that dark street shineth/ The Everlasting Light/ The hopes and
fears of all the years/Are met in Thee tonight.” Christmas upended everything, beginning with
Roman macho triumphalism all the way to hopeless legalism by Jewish
authorities. And it was nothing that man would have devised. “God is Great!” the Muslims say, but here was
God who could be as small as an embryo in Mary.
Heralded by a heaven full of angels, yet leaving shepherds with a very concrete
verifiable sign—baby wrapped in rags, lying in a manger which could only be
found in one of those manure-filled cave-outcrops that shepherds use in the rainy
winter months. Don’t believe the story? Ask the shepherds who were still alive when
the gospels were written. Ask Mary or other witnesses. God came to the poorest,
most reviled, which shows a God who won’t let go of even the worst and most
pitiful of us. While the Broadway version of Christmas deals
in the sacarine imaginary, God came among us in truth and fact and the only way
possible to bring eternal forgiveness with no help on our part. Peace with God. Thus, Christmas is Merry
indeed.
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